My experience of designing for alert management

Alert management allows users to identify critical alerts before it impacts business outcomes.

A good design is all about logic or the thought process behind the unique solution to user needs. When it comes to alert management, designers need to consider that constantly switching between monitoring tools can be exhausting for the user. With such high stakes, at times, it is not easy to derive a perfect design solution at the very first try. In fact, numerous iterations are required to decide which ideas to keep and which ones to toss.

In this blog, I have delved into my own experiences to speak of my design journey with alert management.

Understand alert management

When I first started working with Alert Management, Freshservice’s monitoring software for managing IT infrastructure, not only was I new to IT Operations and Management (ITOM) but also to the larger IT Service Management (ITSM) space. I knew I had a lot to learn in a very short period of time. I chose to work on competitor analysis first to gain internal knowledge, where I was able to identify the gaps and create an action plan for further research to be carried out. The initial screens worked on by one of my teammates also helped me gain insights on my current research.

Observe and learn

Initially, I tried to refine the existing solution to make it fit the requirement but after talking to a few customers, it was soon clear that the solution at hand was not going to work as expected. Talking to actual customers provided an opportunity to find out about the situation and context of the users, who’ll use the product or service. At this stage of the qualitative research, I was able to refine the design by observing relevant customers or targeted users.

Play with points of view and personas

I was able to define personas with the observation data. These personas gave the team a complete picture of who the end-user was for this product. Point of view was derived easily with the personas and the problem statement.

Ideate, brainstorm, validate!

With the defined customer persona the team started thinking about practical problems through brainstorming sessions and came up with ideas and user flows. We quickly jumped into converting the user flows into wireframes. There were various possibilities and solutions and hence there were several wireframes to validate all the hypotheses. It was quite hard for me to make a firm decision at first, as I had a lot of doubt and was constantly questioning myself, ‘What if there is a better approach to this?’ There were many iterations and probable solutions that we prioritized to convert into mocks. They were soon discarded. It was exhausting and ended in a lot of wasteful work. But that’s when I realized that not all ideas need to be prioritized. Some decisions are born out of  the experiences of the designers. That experience enabled us to suggest configurations preferred in different situations, and familiar components to use.

Test and incorporate feedback

With the solution that is created through iterative processes, we wanted to test it with the intended audience. For each test group, we documented and recorded the findings and adjusted the design based on the feedback. The aim was to get to a level where we had enough detail and feedback that suggested we have a working solution that solves the user’s problem. And we knew the only way to get there was by getting the solution validated by our peers and customers.

Ace all visual design elements

Now that there was a solution at hand it became crucial to have a great UI and a good UX that gives the users a way to interact with the application more effectively. 

When it comes to Alert management design, it is always the role of the users that takes precedence over other things. This includes everything  from the functional specification to the layout. Not just a pretty looking UI but more into the placement of functional elements on the screen. The design consists of all the ready-to-use components and pre-configured integrations for better usability. 

Deriving a meaningful solution needs a considerable amount of time spent in research, user interface design (UI), and user experience design (UX). Building a brand value is not a simple task and it is often the case that we need to keep up with the promises in the form of features within our product to keep the customers convinced. So, UX plays a crucial role in either building or improving the brand value. I was nervous when AMS went to beta and live. With so much positive feedback from our customers, I am glad that I got this wonderful opportunity and a great experience. Better interface design, customer satisfaction, and brand value are the key things that made Alert management a huge success.